My favourite: Hans Fries, Saint John the Evangelist in the cauldron

The Kunstmuseum Basel’s collections comprise ca. 4,000 paintings, sculptures, videos, and works of installation art, as well as the ca. 300,000 drawings and prints from seven centuries held by the Kupferstichkabinett. And around 200 people work at the Kunstmuseum Basel in a wide variety of professions - full-time, part-time, on an hourly basis. Some of them present their favourite works from the collection here.

1. What is your name and what is your role at the Kunstmuseum Basel?
Thomas Studer, Trainee in the Programmes

2. Job description
Our department designs classical and experimental mediation formats. It is important to think of very different audiences, which also includes the future audience. We therefore question conventional notions of what, for example, a guided tour in a museum or what is meant by mediation.

3. What's your favorite work?
Hans Fries, Saint John the Evangelist in the cauldron, 1514

4. Why?
Because of his Christian faith, the Roman Emperor Domitian wants to have John the Evangelist executed and chooses the cruel method of a boiling oil bath. But thanks to his faith, the evangelist survives the execution unscathed. Hans Fries' work shows us a torturer (figure with the oil pan) and a disappointed Domitian (with the ruler's insignia crown and sceptre). John in the oil pan, on the other hand, seems strangely relaxed. Does he even enjoy the bath? A calm face to the evil game seems to be good advice then as now.